Originally Posted by Les Hall

Had my Jetbook for over a week now. Use it mostly to read in bed.

1. Am finding it uncomfortable to hold as there isn't really enough surface area without buttons to hold it comfortably. I think some kind of strap on the back that you could slide your hand into would be comfy - like you slide your hand under the strap of a horse brush.For me there is only one decent place to hold it and that is between the page turn buttons and the 4-way pad under the logo. Gets uncomfortable after a while.

2. Using a Mac I find that OS-X copies three invisible files to the memory that appear in the file list - always have to erase them if I want a 'tidy' book list. Maybe I can turn that off on the Mac.

3. The pop-up menu is inconsistent - some menus allow you to cycle thru the menu items going from #6 to #1, #2 etc. Some only let you get to #6 and then go back again #5, #4 etc. Small niggle.

4. The row of buttons on the right side can be quite handy if you can remember menu item numbers. e.g. you are looking at a book page - if you press #6 and then #3 and you are in the font size dialog. Just press #3 and you have bookmarked the page. Press #6 followed by #7 and then #1 starts the background music playing. Usually faster than using the scroll/OK keys.

5. Wish you could turn off the menu bar at the top of the screen.

6.The graphics in the interface are really ugly. What is that illustration when it first boots up - a pile of books & a candle or something - cheesy. Also the main menu page where you can choose Books, Audio Books etc - yech.

7. Same lack of aesthetics goes for the overall physical design. The sliding page turn button is a joke as far as I am concerned. Ugly too. The row of buttons on the right make it pretty well impossible to hold on that side. and I find visually distracting - Latin & Cyrillic numbers?! The 4-way pad is a different color white from the white case. The page turn buttons and the sliding page turn thing are both an odd shiny gunmetal color - why not white? I know - cheaper.

8. The should get rid of the sliding page turn device and move the page turn buttons to that side and shift the 4-way buttons over to the right leaving a large area to hold on the right. Not so good for leftys though....

9. Overall the actual reading experience is good. The screen is clear and causes me no eye strain at 18pt. Initial opening of a book with graphic covers is slower than I would like, but page turns are pretty well instant. I find the LCD screen to be as legible as eInk - it does not compare to any previous reflective LCD's I have used in the past - Palms, Psions etc it's much better and the background, whilst not being as neutral in tone as eInk, is quite light and provides good contrast with the type.

10. It doesn't have the constructional attention to detail that a Kindle or a Sony has. If you are into design aesthetics (I am) it is pretty naff. Like the difference between using a Mac and a Windows box. Lots of people could care less, but for me the quality of design and manufacturing are very important. However I AM a Scotsman so price is a factor here, hence Jetbook and not Sony or Kindle.

Scoring it purely on the experience of reading an ebook I would give it a 7.5 out of 10.

Would love to see if any other Jetbook owners agree or disagree. Holding tips greatly appreciated

Les, Dallas.